What was the meaning of the gratification in his voice?  Did Westerners court loneliness?  Carley wrenched her gaze from the desert void to look at her companions.  Stanton’s eyes were narrowed; his expression had changed; lean and hard and still, his face resembled bronze.  The careless humor was gone, as was the heated flush of his quarrel with Flo.  The girl, too, had subtly changed, had responded to an influence that had subdued and softened her.  She was mute; her eyes held a light, comprehensive and all-embracing; she was beautiful then.  For Carley, quick to read emotion, caught a glimpse of a strong, steadfast soul that spiritualized the brown freckled face.

Carley wheeled to gaze out and down into this incomprehensible abyss, and on to the far up-flung heights, white and red and yellow, and so on to the wonderful mystic haze of distance.  The significance of Flo’s designation of miles could not be grasped by Carley.  She could not estimate distance.  But she did not need that to realize her perceptions were swallowed up by magnitude.  Hitherto the power of her eyes had been unknown.  How splendid to see afar!  She could see—­yes—­but what did she see?  Space first, annihilating space, dwarfing her preconceived images, and then wondrous colors!  What had she known of color?  No wonder artists failed adequately and truly to paint mountains, let alone the desert space.  The toiling millions of the crowded cities were ignorant of this terrible beauty and sublimity.  Would it have helped them to see?  But just to breathe that untainted air, just to see once the boundless open of colored sand and rock—­to realize what the freedom of eagles meant would not that have helped anyone?

And with the thought there came to Carley’s quickened and struggling mind a conception of freedom.  She had not yet watched eagles, but she now gazed out into their domain.  What then must be the effect of such environment on people whom it encompassed?  The idea stunned Carley.  Would such people grow in proportion to the nature with which they were in conflict?  Hereditary influence could not be comparable to such environment in the shaping of character.

“Shore I could stand here all day,” said Flo.  “But it’s beginning to cloud over and this high wind is cold.  So we’d better go, Carley.”

“I don’t know what I am, but it’s not cold,” replied Carley.

“Wal, Miss Carley, I reckon you’ll have to come again an’ again before you get a comfortable feelin’ here,” said Stanton.

It surprised Carley to see that this young Westerner had hit upon the truth.  He understood her.  Indeed she was uncomfortable.  She was oppressed, vaguely unhappy.  But why?  The thing there—­the infinitude of open sand and rock—­was beautiful, wonderful, even glorious.  She looked again.